Fill This Void With Things Unreal
by highway-salvation
Summary: A remake of my old fic, "Say When". When Ryan is transported by a djin into a universe where Dean is still alive, will she be able to find the strength to return to the real world?
1. Chapter 1

_Now, darkness is a harsh term, don't you think?  
__And yet it dominates the things I see._

"Goodnight, my sweet boy," she said softly, leaning down to kiss her son on his forehead. He shut his eyes, a small smile still lingering on his lips as he drifted away from consciousness. For a few minutes, Ryan just sat at his bedside, admiring the tiny, wonderful human being; wondering how it was possible that she had created him.

Never would she have imagined being a single mother would be such a vigorous lifestyle. She worked seven-to-three at Lawrence Elementary School, picked up Colt from pre-school and made dinner, and then did whatever laundry or tidying up needed to be done around the house. By the time ten o'clock came around, she was tired. It didn't seem like much, but the monotony of an everyday routine had become exhausting.

After she'd taken a shower and brushed her teeth and hair, Ryan was reunited with her extremely comfortable bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was out.

Thankfully, however, she was a light sleeper.

The doorbell had only rung once and she shot up, her mom-radar immediately going off. When she realized it was someone at the door, she looked to the clock. _2:40 a.m. _Weird. They didn't get many visitors these days, especially not in crazy hours of the night.

Ryan slipped on her robe and house shoes and cautiously walked toward the front door. Silently, she prayed that it whatever was standing on the other side wasn't about to attack her. She hadn't fought in years, and it had been an unheard of amount of time since she'd been to the gym. She was completely vulnerable.

She opened the door and let a sigh of relief escape her lips. Her older sister, Emily, was standing before her, using the doorframe to hold herself up. After the initial relief that Emily wasn't a murderer blew over, Ryan realized that her sister was in pretty bad shape. She had a few cuts on her face and was grabbing tightly onto her torso, using the other arm to support herself.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…" Ryan croaked as Emily nearly fell into her arms. "Let's get you inside."

Ryan walked her slowly into the kitchen where she could use the countertop for support, and began to bring together the makings for an icepack.

Emily held the icepack up to her cheek as Ryan surveyed the wound on her torso, which was bruised in multiple places.

"This looks like a couple of broken ribs, Em. We might need to go the emergency room."

"No," she husked, taking the icepack away from her face. "I've got a warrant out for my arrest in this town. Too risky."

"What happened to you?" Emily let out a chesty cough, spitting some blood into the kitchen sink.

"It was a djin… the damn thing nearly killed me…"

"I can see that. Where was Danny?"

"He was there… he's probably in some alternate universe now," as she spoke, Ryan's attention shifted from Emily's ribs to her face. An alarming expression formed on her face as Emily looked away from her, replaying the story in her head. "The djin was on top of me, that weird blue light coming out of its hand when Danny pulled him off of me and told me run like hell. I knew if I didn't, it would kill us both, so I ran. And now he's there… maybe dead, at least close to it. But I left him there… _I left him there_, Ry."

The sadness in Emily's face was awakening something inside that Ryan wasn't prepared to feel again. Hurt. Heartbreak. Loss.

She straightened up from her crouch and put her hands on Emily's shoulders. It wasn't important to her that she hadn't hunted in years, or that she was nearly incapable of fighting a human, better yet something with supernatural powers under its belt. It wasn't important that she was more likely to die than prevail. What was important was that every fiber in her being was telling her to go out there, hunt the damn thing down, and save her sister from the unbearable pain of losing her husband. She wouldn't wish that kind of pain on her worst enemy.

"Tell me where the djin is."


	2. Chapter 2

**Lawrence, Kansas  
**_4 Years Ago_

It was the third pregnancy test she'd taken in the past twenty-four hours. It was the third pink plus sign. The white stick sat in the palm of her hand with the weight of a ten pound dumbbell. The small apartment bathroom seemed to be closing in on her, getting smaller by the second, while the plus sign got bigger. Soon it seemed like a flashing neon sign, reminding her repeatedly of her carelessness.

"Shit…" she cursed under her breath, setting the stick aside, facedown. Her cell phone lay dormant, no buzzes or dings from the messages that Dean should have been leaving. She immediately picked up the ancient flip-phone and pressed the '_2', _signaling her speed dial to call her currently M.I.A. boyfriend. To her surprise, he picked up.

"Hey, Ry."

"_'Hey, Ry?'_ Really?"

"Oh, come on. Now I'm answering the phone the wrong way?"

"Try not picking up the phone at all. It would be nice to know that you're alive throughout the day, Dean! It's not like you're a freakin' plumber doing his day job. This is the apocalypse, Sam's gone dark side, and you can't pick up the phone to let me know that you're still breathing?" She was coming off about five times more bitchy than she meant to, but the stress of everything was bellowing up through her lips, uncontrollably spouting out into the receiver. Dean always got the brunt of her anger, even when he'd done nothing wrong.

"I'm sorry, okay? I haven't exactly had a minute of down time."

"Whatever. Where are you?"

"Right outside of Detroit. On my way back. Chuck seems to think that this final battle is gonna go down in Lawrence."

Ryan sucked in a deep, irate breath. "Awesome. So, are you planning on stopping by here or are you just gonna go ahead and go full throttle on this suicide mission?"

"There's not a lot of time here, Ryan. The devil isn't just delay ending the world so that I can go see my girlfriend." His voice was uneven, she could tell that he'd been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours. Seeing his brother let Lucifer in, watching him embody the evilness that he'd sworn to always fight against. Dean was breaking. Quickly, meticulously breaking into pieces. And Ryan's rash of shit wasn't helping. But that was just her; selfish at the exact wrong moment.

Her jaw clenched, her temper flaring. After a few seconds, she dropped the bomb. "Well, not that it makes a damn difference to you, but I'm pregnant."

There was silence on his end, as expected. Ryan looked to the ground, and although she felt a twinge of guilt for giving him so much crap when he was already neck deep in it, she couldn't suppress her anger long enough to take it all back.

"Of course it makes a difference…" his voice was low and husky. Her heart tightened, because she knew that if she could see him, she'd see tears in his eyes.

"I'll be there as soon as this is over, okay?"

"Okay, Dean." She replied curtly, no sympathy in her tone. With that, she hung up the phone.

Little did she know, it would be the last time she would ever hear his voice.


	3. Chapter 3

_Present Day _

Before she'd even had the chance to track him, his hands were at her throat. Long, cold fingers wrapped around her neck, a blue glow starting to flare from the fingertips. Ryan's instinct kicked in and she sent a successful backwards head-but in his direction, but it only slowed him down temporarily. She pulled the lamb's blood-soaked knife from her back pocket as he approached her, the blue glow now illuminating his entire hand. Ryan held the knife out in front of her, but the djin seemed unfazed. She slashed at it and it hopped back, dodging the blade with perfect agility and grace. Midway through her second slash, the djin knocked the knife out of her hand, sending it flying against the back wall of the abandoned factory.

_Great_, she thought, as it charged in her direction. Her fists were up near her face and she attempted to defend herself through physical contact, but failed. As Emily had predicted, her unsharpened skills were no match for this djin. It _was_ stronger than what she'd encountered, and it overpowered her with barely any effort. The blue light pressed against her neck and though she fought against him, he pushed her against the back wall, holding her to it with his entirety. The world around her started to fade. Edges became soft, colors started to drain. Before she could take another breath, the lights had gone out.

The arm wrapped around her torso was the first thing she saw. Her midsection was bare except for a sports bra and she could see the elastic band of sweatpants at her hips. Things were still hazy for a few seconds as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. She was in a bed-obviously not alone-in what looked like an apartment. It didn't take her long to realize it was her old apartment in Lawrence, the one that she'd left behind four years ago with no intention of turning back. Then the memories came flooding in, like a raging tide that had just broke past a cracking dam. Emily's bruised body, the djin defeating her at the factory and sending her into some wacko-world. This must have been wacko-world.

Once the realization set in that nothing was real, she shifted her attention back to the arm that was hugging her middle. It held her tightly, keeping her close to the body that it was attached to. Ryan began to connect the dots, her heart pounding. If she was in her apartment in Lawrence, that arm could only belong to one person. Slowly, she turned over.

He stirred a little in reaction to her movement, but was quickly back in sleep's embrace, his chest moving rhythmically up and down against hers. There was no space between them; she could feel the heat of his skin radiating onto her own. When she laid eyes on his face, her heart stopped beating. Her jaw clenched, and for a second, she just stared at him. She placed a hand on his cheek gently, confirming that he was tangible. He was real-even if he wasn't. She could touch him, she could feel him. He was real enough.

Ryan's other hand covered her mouth as an inevitable sob sounded in her throat, her chest heaved and her shoulders shook back and forth as she began to cry. This was all too much. Her heart had gotten used to the fact that Dean was gone, forever. But now, she was back where she belonged; in his arms. She pulled herself closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he slept. His arm tightened around her, almost instinctively. She was still shaking, despite her best efforts to stop herself from having an emotional breakdown at the sight of her boyfriend. But it had been four years. Four years without seeing him, hearing his voice, touching his unshaven cheek, kissing his lips. Four torturous years that seemed to be disappearing by the second.

She obviously hadn't been very discreet, because Dean pulled away from her, eyes open and heavy with the weight of sleep. He pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear and used his thumb to wipe her soaked cheeks.

"Ry… what is it?"

At the sound of his voice, she couldn't help but let out another huff. A few more tears fell down her cheeks. That husky, batman-like voice would never get old. It had been too damn long. She sniffled as he continued to stare at her, obviously alarmed at her seemingly unexpected breakdown.

"Nothing. It's nothing." She said through a half-composed smile, trying to disregard how she was feeling and embrace the fact that Dean was in the same room with her.

"It's obviously not nothing, babe. You're a mess. Talk to me." He nudged her.

"I just…" she sniffled again, her eyes shutting tightly. When they reopened, he was still there, still looking at her with the same green eyes. "I had a really, really bad dream."

His expression softened and he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

"It's alright, baby. I'm right here. Nothing's gonna happen to you. You know that. Go back to sleep, okay?"

The tone in his voice made her want to continue crying, but she didn't. She didn't want to worry him anymore.

"Okay." She nodded.

He closed his eyes again, but she stayed awake. She didn't want to take the chance of going to sleep and waking up without him.


End file.
